Marion Elizabeth McKenzie Petit Dec. 13, 1919-July 13, 2012

July 24, 2012

Marion Elizabeth McKenzie Petit July 13, 2012 Beloved wife and mother, Marion Elizabeth McKenzie Petit died at the age of 92 in La Canada, California. She was born to J. Wallace McKenzie and Wilhelmina Fitger McKenzie on December 13, 1919, in Great Falls, Montana. She led a full and happy life which came to a peaceful close on July 13, 2012, at home in La Canada, CA. She was a graduate of Scripps College for Women, Claremont, CA (1941) and a nursing school in Boston, where she specialized in pediatric nursing during WW II, a skill she later must have found very valuable as she raised her five children.She will be missed by the large family she leaves behind and her loving husband of 50 years, Dr. Donald W. Petit. Her children, Sharon Donnelly Sabin (Newberg, OR), Kenneth W. Donnelly (Ventura, CA), Thomas E. (Tuck) Donnelly (Bainbridge Is., WA), Margaret A. Donnelly (Durango, CO) and Elizabeth Donnelly O'Brien (West Linn, OR), her five step children, eleven grandchildren and four great grand children and her husband, will gather together to celebrate her vibrant life in a private memorial ceremony at a later date at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale.Betty Petit will best be remembered by the horse show world as an avid and able equestrienne on board her champion American Saddlebred horses well into her eighth decade. By her family, she will also be remembered fondly as a tireless and happy competitor no matter what the game: tennis, golf, Scrabble or Bridge. But most of all, the happiest role of her long life was that of motherhood. She loved babies and children and, later in life, the foals of her splendid horses. She will be greatly missed by all of us that loved her.